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Field notes at Het Nieuw Concert Caffe:

I Just sat down at the Cafe het nieuw concert, down my street in Rotterdam, Charlois . It’s a Tuesday, 14:51. The usual waiter just asked me what for my order, I said cappuccino as usual. I’m sitting outside and I have a view of the whole street. There’s the bus 70 in direction of Keizerswaard that just passed me by. The bus stop is actually right infant of the caffe, well a little to the right. She just brought my coffee ^^good because the sun is coming out right now. She gave me two packs of sugars this time and the cookie is different but still specula. It tastes okay but I prefer the Lotus cookie.
This cafe is located on the corner of the street which allows me to see 4 streets; Zuidhoek, Grondherendijk,Frans Bekkerstraat and Kaatsbaan. The bus stop I talked about is in Frans Bekkerstraat but the name of the stop is Katatseban, its the street that goes to the church. I can see the Church from here but its hidden by a bunch of trees. Now I see the bus 70 in direction of Charlois. A few people stepping of the bus, some came out without a mask but at least half was wearing a mask. A van from Stedin just stopped on Frans Bekkerstraat. A dude came out and opened a green door and then called someone. He is definitely there for a fixing job. Could it be the electricity in this area? I hear a “click “ sound from jere and then he closed the door and hung up Oh he went back inside for a minute and sow went out again, closed the door and locked it. He’s back in the van and is driving away the same way the last bus went. I can see everyone, the bikers, the mom and her kid crossing the street, more bikers. A taxi? Never saw a taxi in this street before. There’s a lot of parents walking with their kids and they all have backpacks, surely they were at school or kinder-garden. Now that I think about it , there is a school at the end of the street Kaatsbaan, they are coming from that direction anyway.
Aw I finished my coffee, it felt so nice to sip and type, I really felt like the journalist from daredevil, don’t ask me why I just accepted it.
A lot of the parents and kids were standing at the bus stop and now the bus just came and everyone got in, even people that were standing behind the bus stop. It didn’t even look like they were waiting for the bus.
There’s a guy here at the caffe on my left telling a story to his friend , I can only see him tho. I can hear both of them but he’s the one dominating the conversation anyways. He’s drinking beer from a green bottle, I’m guessing its Heineken, aka the worst beer in my opinion, not that anyone asked, But regardless of that detail, he is talking in dutch, I wis I could understand what he is saying because he feels very passionate about what he has to say. If I had to guess what he’s talking about, either a story about a mutual friend or maybe sports. I like his accent in dutch as opposed to the two men on my right.
Two guys talking in front of a white van that has a ladder on the ceiling. I think they are the ones doing the construction work on the newly renovated apartments in Zuidhoek right next to the caffe. There are more cars passing by so I can hardly hear them. I hear an ambulance siren…the third one this week.
The guy from earlier that was checking whatever’s behind that green door is back in Frans Bekkerstraat on the same spot as before. The van has some orange flashing lights going on and off. I don’t see anyone inside but now it just started to drive away again, ok I saw him there was just a reflection on his window that blocked my view of him. I really wonder what he was doing. Did he do it correctly? Because why else would he be back there again within the hour?I’m looking at the green door now and I see that symbol (I forgot what it symbolises exactly) the yellow triangle with something inside. I think it is an electrify box or something. It would make sense because our wifi is not working at all lately and maybe it’s linked to that? If it is , I hope he fixed it because it would be great honestly.

The tables are set differently because it was raining earlier: today there are only four tables out in the terras. But it’s not the tables that makes the vibe different , it’s the fact that all the chairs are against the window of the coffee meaning that all the customers would face the street, like I am. But I’m the only customer here so its a personal treat I guess. They also put out the little thing to protect from the rain, I forgot how it’s called but it’s basically an umbrella for a terrace that comes out of the wall, if that makes any sense. The decoration of this place could honestly be much better, it looked like I just sat down in the 80s. On the window there’s already Halloween decorations like the mask from that movie Scream, ew there’s a lil statue of a rat hissing kind of like a cat, rats freak me out. There’s even fake spider nests inside. Outside is just very basic: the tables are petroleum blue, the chairs are grey, there’s little hanging flower pots on the sides with red flowers in and the structure of this building is white. Apart from the grey, there are all the colours from the dutch flag here, and the cherry on top of the cake is a neon red Feyeonord sign. It’s cute that they have a little spot to charge electric bikes, that’s smart. EY the sun is out again, makes me smile each time. Its really hitting this one house that separates Grondherendijk from Kaatsbaan, which is on my left (10 o’clock to be precise). It’s a white house with grey pointy ceiling like traditional houses. But what really drew my attention to that is the mosaic that’s on it. It’s so colourful and really adds to this corner . Its a mosaic Rotterdam I think, I see houses a river or a canal and a boat on the water, but all in very bright colours like blue(all shades) red green orange and white.
It feels like you can only truly appreciate this piece of art if you’re sitting where I’m sitting. But since I’m the only customer here and everyone else in this street is going somewhere, I have that advantage. But this is really true tho, everyone here is going somewhere, at the same time what more can you do in the street on a supposedly rainy day?
Ok my time is up, I’m going to pay for my coffee and exit the site.

PS: The Stedin guy did not fix the wifi… -_-